Community housing provider Accessible Properties says they are committed to helping ease the pressure on housing in Tauranga by building more homes.
The statement follows reports that Tauranga now outranks Auckland as New Zealand's most unaffordable city.
Accessible Properties is New Zealand's largest non-government social housing provider and took over more than 1100 houses from Housing New Zealand in April last year.
Accessible Properties Tauranga general manager Vicki McLaren says they are already working hard to help make sure as many homes as possible are available to those who need them.
'There is pressure at every level. More people need emergency housing, more need social housing and this survey goes to show that it's taking longer for people to move into owning their own homes – we have a bottle neck,” she says.
'Since taking over the former state houses in Tauranga we have already added three homes to the number we offer and have many more in the planning phase. We will deliver an additional 150 homes in the years ahead.
'In Tauranga everyone is aware of the need for more affordable housing. We are part of a group including representatives of local and central government, iwi and social support organisations working to end homelessness in the city. We also support the Smart Growth initiative.
'Tauranga is a great city in which to live,” says Vicki. 'But we are all working together on a number of initiatives to try to ease the pressure on housing.
'We are determined to do our best to make sure good quality homes are available to everyone – especially those families and individuals who need some extra support to be able to afford a home that works for them.”
The annual Demographia survey found Tauranga house prices were 8.9 times the median income, just a sniff worse than Auckland's "severely unaffordable" 8.8.
4 comments
Nonsense
Posted on 23-01-2018 17:03 | By maildrop
Norman Tebbit told people to "get on their bikes" in the 80s. True then and true now. If Tauranga is too pricey for you, ship out. It's still a relatively nice place to live so I'd hate to see it filled with state houses and ghettos just to keep the numbskulls happy.
Nanny state
Posted on 23-01-2018 17:58 | By maildrop
It makes my blood boil to hear all this whining. There are 10,000 houses for sale on Trade Me at under $350k. If you can't afford those it down to life choices you made. Why are people expecting others to provide their housing, feed their kids, juice their car, pay for their phone plan? The message should be go to school and work hard. Don't have kids you cannot afford. Don't waste your money on rubbish and consumerism. Move to find work and housing you can afford. If you can't afford this cheap housing I don't care. You had opportunity and made choices. Live with them and stop whining.
The Ardern effect
Posted on 24-01-2018 00:45 | By MISS ADVENTURE
There isnt any new land available, no more builders than before, no other tradies so building more will only happen if there is massive immigration hapening. Of course part of teh socialist regime is to shut that donw. So in end result all the talk will generate absoltuely nothing. The only way to stem the demand for housing is to ramp up the lending criteria - banks have already done that.
Miss Informed
Posted on 24-01-2018 10:03 | By Scott Parker
This is new land being made available. The number of tradies in the city is also increasing.The real challenge is that there is no incentive to build 'cheap homes'. Our only hope is that the apartment market begins to deliver some growth.
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